Car Color Preferences by Gender

Everyone has a favorite car color, but it turns out that your favorite may be something you have in common with members of your same gender. In a recent study by iseecars.com, preferences for different car colors were assessed by gender, and there are a few patterns:

Teal is back (did we mean for that to happen?): The top color choice for women was teal, with 19 percent of respondents choosing teal as their preferred color of car. Teal was followed by gold, with 14.9 percent of respondents favoring it. Silver, blue, green and beige rounded out women’s preferences for car color choice.

Men prefer flashy yellow and orange: The top two color choices by men were yellow, at a whopping 33.9 percent and orange, at 32.6 percent. This reverses the results from the year before, when orange outranked yellow in men’s preferred color choice. After yellow and orange, men prefer black, brown, red, white and gray.

As the results demonstrate, men and women don’t just prefer different colors; the strength of their preference differences is varied by gender, too. Men more strongly prefer yellow and orange than women prefer teal and gold.

The differences in model preferences: Men and women are also drawn to different types of cars. Men, not surprisingly, gravitate to pick-up trucks, convertibles and coupes, while women are more drawn to SUVs and minivans.

The color choices and body style partialities tend to line up. For instance, men prefer pickups and convertibles, and brown and yellow tend to be common colors for those types of cars, respectively. For women, there’s a high percentage of SUVs and minivans that tend to come in teal.

Not surprisingly, men’s cars tend to cost more than women’s cars. The average price tag for a used yellow car is $20,601 while the average price for a used teal car is $11,053.

While the results are fun to consider and think about in terms of the yellow and teal car drivers you know, they are useful pieces of information for the dealer trying to market to the community around them. For instance, it’s helpful to know that it may be beneficial to feature a teal minivan in an Instagram post targeting young moms in your area.

Likewise, if you’re trying to reach out to men between the ages of 29 and 45, placing a gold SUV in the image attached to a promotional email isn’t likely to be your most effective choice. Instead, get their wheels turning with a yellow convertible or a shiny brown pick-up.

Understanding car color and model preferences can be helpful in reaching your target market for car sales. Don’t hesitate to learn more about the car preferences of your social media audience. Take a poll or start an Instagram contest to find out what colors are favored in your community.